The invention relates to a housing for an airbag module and to a method for manufacturing such housing.
A housing for an airbag module serves to accommodate a folded gas bag and a gas generator which in the case of activation fills the gas bag with a gas. The gas bag filled with gas serves to protect a person present inside or outside a motor vehicle in an accident situation. During inflation of the gas bag, the gas bag exits from the housing in order to be deployed for the protection of said person. The housing also can serve as holder for the gas generator.
From the prior art plastic and metal housings are known as housings for airbag modules. These materials provide the housing with a high stability and strength, but are of correspondingly thick-walled configuration for stability reasons, so that the weight of the housing is correspondingly high. In the automotive industry great efforts are made to keep the weight of the individual vehicle components as low as possible in order to for example lower the fuel consumption of the vehicle. Therefore, in the field of airbag modules attempts also are made to reduce the weight of the airbag modules.
In this respect US 2007/0007753 A1 for example proposes to at least partly fabricate the housing of an airbag module from a flexible material, such as a fabric. To provide the housing with stability, a rim of a rigid material to which the flexible material is attached is provided in an edge region. The necessary processes for connecting the flexible material with the rigid material are expensive and incur high costs.